Maine Medical Center
Group shot of MMC Pediatric Residents standing together outside

Resident Teaching

The pediatric residents at MMC serve integral roles both as learners and educators throughout their residency. During the day-to-day care of patients in both the inpatient and outpatient setting, informal teaching sessions are continuously occurring between attendings, residents, and medical students. Formal teaching occurs in the following forums:

Grand Rounds occurs every Thursday at 9 am and is currently offered both via video conference and in person at the Dana Teaching Center on site. Topics range from national speakers bringing in the latest data on a particular pediatric disease, to our local faculty presenting their expertise on pediatric topics. Senior residents also prepare and present a grand rounds topic of their choosing during their 3rd year.

Each week, following Grand Rounds, residents have protected didactic time between 10:00AM and 1:00PM. During this time, residents are excused from clinical duties.

The didactic curriculum spans clinical, psychosocial, and pathophysiologic topics and are given by our attending physicians and other leaders within their field of expertise. Lecture content is based on American Board of Pediatric Content specifications such that by the time a resident has completed training, they will have had the opportunity to hear key content topics twice.

Didactic sessions generally include 30 minutes of teaching (chalk talks, Power Point presentations, demonstrations), and 20 minutes of group work and/or board review questions. We’ve adapted this format to keep didactics interactive and stimulating!

Midday report is held from 12:30-1:00pm, four times per week. Led primarily by the chief resident, this conference provides an in-depth discussion of common and uncommon chief complaints, recent patient cases, practical medical experiences, clinical practice guidelines and high-yield board prep exposure.

Cases are often used as starting points to explore differential diagnoses and management decisions of inpatient, outpatient, specialty and critical care cases. It is attended by senior residents, interns, medical students and faculty.

The Hannaford Center for Safety, Innovation and Simulation is a state-of-the-art simulation training center for students, residents, attendings, nurses, and ancillary health care providers. This 18,000 square foot facility includes operating rooms and trauma rooms identical to the rooms at MMC. It houses life-like child and infant manikins that breathe, blink, have pulses, seize, turn blue and respond to medication. Our program has taken advantage of this facility by building a formal simulation curriculum. This robust curriculum brings each resident to the simulation center four to five times a year for Hi Fidelity scenarios ranging from procedural sedation to newborn emergencies. The scenarios become more involved and difficult the more senior the resident. We have dedicated faculty leadership from the hospitalist, PICU, and NICU teams developing and facilitating this experience. Interns are oriented to basic procedures and code team structure during their July orientation, and new seniors participate in a Senior Boot Camp preparing them for the added responsibilities they will have as a senior resident. In addition to our formal curriculum, we participate in once weekly pediatrics interdisciplinary team training simulation scenarios that occur on site at Maine Medical Center.

Other regularly scheduled conferences for all residents include:

  • Pediatric Journal Club (monthly)
  • Pediatric Morbidity and Mortality Conference (monthly)
  • Pediatric Emergency Medicine Conference (monthly)
  • Pediatric Primary Care Conference Series (monthly)
  • Pediatric Psychiatry Lunch and Learns and Midday Report Series (monthly)
  • Pediatric Board Review (4-day senior conference in June)
  • Pediatric Pulmonary Conference (once per month during midday report)
  • Neonatology Conference (once a month during midday report)
  • Child Abuse Conference (once a month during midday report)

Other conferences specific to rotations include:

  • Inter-professional Educational Sessions (weekly on IPU rotation)
  • PICU midday teaching (daily for residents on PICU rotation)
  • Radiology Rounds (twice weekly for residents on IPU rotation)

Our residents also participate in a longitudinal “Residents as Teachers” curriculum where they gain the skill set to become better teachers through interactive didactic presentations throughout the year. These are grouped to occur during the ACQUIRE rotation in year 1, at our Pediatric Retreat for year 2, and in the 3rd year TEACH rotation. Many of our residents earn commendations on their teaching skills from the Tufts medical students each year.